I'm posting this for the benefit of those of us who want to hear directly from Tom Cable. There are multiple threads for smearing and trashing Tom. So please direct any belittling remarks or images to any of those negative campaign threads.

Let's start this thread over. We have plenty of threads that are just railing on Cable and those are easy to find. We don't need more of those. If that's what you want to do, find the appropriate thread.

Appreciated hearing the coach, thanks to Jville for posting the start to this thread. Sure wish I had confidence he is right and it is a matter of communication and individual confidence that has not emerged. I will wait and watch and keep my fingers crossed because otherwise this season will be repeat of last and the one before that etc.. It's easy to throw rock at the coach and the FO but a clear realization needs to be factored into the assessment and that is the team is collectively paying very close to least amount in the league for their OLine.

The positive is the players are all somewhat experienced as OLinemen and not rookies though three are playing new positions for them. As well the team does have good athletes playing on the OLine, but there is a lot more than athletic ability needed to make a solid OLineman. We need to be patient.

Hopefully they will gel and improve. Of course, if not, it's not like anything is going to happen.

Even if they do though, it's reasonable to think Joekel won't be there next year. Pocic will likely find his way into the starting lineup (or else it's another wasted high pick*) and that probably means moving Glo back to the left side (I've not heard a peep of Pocic playing on the left side, ever). And Fant will likely be back. We'll be looking at at least 2/5 of the line turning over and another 1/5 changing positions again. This is one thing I don't think the coaches are accurately accounting for. They keep claiming they just need time to work together but that ignores the reality that you just don't get that kind of time anymore.

* not necessarily wasted, as I'm not sure the whole point of drafting Pocic wasn't to have him be a versatile backup that allows the team to keep one fewer lineman on the gameday active roster.

I think Field Gulls has a snap by snap video of all of Wilson's drop backs.

You'll see that for the most part, there are only two players getting physically over matched more than a few times: Odhiambo and Joekel. I'm hoping that it's nothing than inexperience on Odhiambo's part and unfamiliarity with Odhiambo on the part of Joekel.

The problem with OL (really any position in football) is if you play tentative and try to think too much it slows you down. The lines are played in a phone booth where everything happens much more quickly. So if you hesitate and lose that step, that DE or 3T DT gains that step, gets outside of a shoulder, and then you lost leverage totally.

A good example is where Odhiambo was expecting a chip block from Graham. Graham does a fly by and Rees is left with a DE that puts him on his ass. There's no excuse for it in football, but likely what happened was that Odhiambo expected that player to either be slowed down or redirected, and Perry came at him full steam and won that battle.

I'm hoping communication is better at home, I'm hoping experienced from that game helps both players. If not, we're screwed because we'll have physical mismatches on that entire side of the line and we don't have much better options.

Good stuff. I think Tom is being honest. After listening to that, I realized that my bashing of him the other day was WAY off track. I'm a little embarrassed, but that's just the passion and disappointment of a fan showing.

Listening to Tyler Polumbus on with John Clayton the other day, he says that Tom Cable is one of the best OLine coaches out there, and we're lucky to have him. I trust Polumbus, and his opinions. Not all of them. I disagree with moving Joekel to Left Tackle, because I (now) trust Tom and Pete to put the best players in the best position to succeed.

Last year, that wasn't so obvious, but I think they tried some stuff that didn't work in the previous 2 years, and have realized that they need to "go back to basics." Why would the try different stuff? Because they're aren't any good OLinemen available coming out of college. Just look at the last 5 - 10 drafts, and how many 1st round busts there have been.

Listening to Danny, Dave & Moore this morning taught me a few things too. Like someone mentioned above, Graham missed a chip on the DE, and per Dave Wyman, Chris Carson missed one also. Add to that Dave Wyman's Chalk Talk where Chris Carson didn't widen his route enough for the 1st passing play to succeed, and you can see that there's a lot more to the OLine's blocking scheme than just the 5 guys up front.

I think the OLine is going to show vast improvement this week, but we have to temper our expectations some. We're putting a completely new Offensive Line out there, with a rookie, a new guy, and a guy coming off of an injury. But I'll predict that Thomas Rawls lights it up Sunday.

If you want to hear some good information concerning the Offensive Line play, listen to the first 15 minutes of this Danny, Dave & Moore podcast, Matthew Hasselbeck on the John Clayton show, and this John Clayton w/Tyler Polumbus podcast.

DANNY, DAVE AND MOORE September 14, 2017 - Hour 1

Danny, Dave, and Moore start off Thursday by taking a look at just what the Seahawks' offensive will look like in week two after a week full of struggles in their opener.

In the Seahawks Spotlight, cornerback Justin Coleman joins the guys and sheds light on what it's like to join a team right before the start of the season......

Hawks46 wrote:A good example is where Odhiambo was expecting a chip block from Graham. Graham does a fly by and Rees is left with a DE that puts him on his ass. There's no excuse for it in football, but likely what happened was that Odhiambo expected that player to either be slowed down or redirected, and Perry came at him full steam and won that battle.

I'm hoping communication is better at home, I'm hoping experienced from that game helps both players. If not, we're screwed because we'll have physical mismatches on that entire side of the line and we don't have much better options.

If that's the play I think you are talking about it definitely looked weird as if Rees wasn't even planning on blocking the DE and then when he saw him coming it was like "Oh crap" and by then it was too late. I don't know if it was just that he was expecting help but to me it looked like his first move was towards the DT more than to the DE.

Hawks46 wrote:A good example is where Odhiambo was expecting a chip block from Graham. Graham does a fly by and Rees is left with a DE that puts him on his ass. There's no excuse for it in football, but likely what happened was that Odhiambo expected that player to either be slowed down or redirected, and Perry came at him full steam and won that battle.

I'm hoping communication is better at home, I'm hoping experienced from that game helps both players. If not, we're screwed because we'll have physical mismatches on that entire side of the line and we don't have much better options.

If that's the play I think you are talking about it definitely looked weird as if Rees wasn't even planning on blocking the DE and then when he saw him coming it was like "Oh crap" and by then it was too late. I don't know if it was just that he was expecting help but to me it looked like his first move was towards the DT more than to the DE.

That is the play he's talking about. At first it looked like Rees tripped over Joekel's left foot, but after rewinding and looking at it real close on my 65" 4k TV, I'm pretty sure that their feet didn't make contact.

This game reminded me a lot of the post-bye game against the Cardinals in 2015 where we had plenty of time to prepare but then looked completely lost against an aggressive 3-4 scheme. The ever increasing restrictions around practices aren't doing our inexperienced players any favors and we need to do a better job of phasing in youth in the future. We saw an attempt at that in the secondary with the 2017 draft so it's something the FO is now prioritizing.

Last season our OL had around 50% fewer combined starts then the next closest team (Titans). Odhiambo replacing Fant was another setback on that front, but I do think we should expect improvement over the remainder of the season. Learning on the job is just a major component of offensive line play these days.

If we need to throw blame around then I think the main question is how we ended up with so little experience. I agree with the philosophy of not overpaying mediocre or injury prone players. Carpenter, Sweezy, Unger, Okung, and Giacomini all earned contracts in excess of their availability and consistency on the field while they were with us. It's easy to see why the team preferred comp picks or players instead of overpaying, but in hindsight we probably should have tried to stagger things a bit better. I wonder how much it sabotaged our plans when Okung decided to be his own agent.

AgentDib wrote:This game reminded me a lot of the post-bye game against the Cardinals in 2015 where we had plenty of time to prepare but then looked completely lost against an aggressive 3-4 scheme. The ever increasing restrictions around practices aren't doing our inexperienced players any favors and we need to do a better job of phasing in youth in the future. We saw an attempt at that in the secondary with the 2017 draft so it's something the FO is now prioritizing.

Last season our OL had around 50% fewer combined starts then the next closest team (Titans). Odhiambo replacing Fant was another setback on that front, but I do think we should expect improvement over the remainder of the season. Learning on the job is just a major component of offensive line play these days.

If we need to throw blame around then I think the main question is how we ended up with so little experience. I agree with the philosophy of not overpaying mediocre or injury prone players. Carpenter, Sweezy, Unger, Okung, and Giacomini all earned contracts in excess of their availability and consistency on the field while they were with us. It's easy to see why the team preferred comp picks or players instead of overpaying, but in hindsight we probably should have tried to stagger things a bit better. I wonder how much it sabotaged our plans when Okung decided to be his own agent.

So, so so correct re: staggering.

The offseason Okung and Sweezy came up I remember looking at the previous season and we had 3/5 I think players that were new to their position i.e. a new starter or shifted around because of the exact same reason: 2 OL left the team in Unger and Carpenter.

I completely understood Okung's availability issues but I was adamant they sign him precisely because I felt the 3/5 position OL shuffle was another guaranteed disaster. And I was an Okung detractor.

DavidSeven was banging this drum until his hand fell off as I recall.

The commitment not to overpay should have accounted for how many holes you're leaving simultaneously, and it's kind of a gross error on Schneider's part I feel. Although his approach has been nearly flawless otherwise in terms of allowing us to retain a core and stay cap-flexible. I just think this minor tweak - don't let 2 OL walk at the same time especially if the resulting shuffle leaves 3 positions in flux - would have done wonders had they followed it.

All of which has me re-thinking my Cable-hate. Okay the players are being developed into 2nd contract worthy quickly enough, but when 3/5 spots are turned over that means his newbies are constantly playing next to crap.

Historically when we've added personnel to our OL, or made wholesale changes, it's taken 4-6 weeks to round into form. It's part of the reason we have a reputation as a slow starting team. If we get a team with a good DL (Cards and Rams) it's made the OL in progress look a lot worse.

I'm honestly hoping we're going that way this year. I don't mind a sluggish start as we have a lot of winnable games to start the year. This week the 49ers. Sure, their young and talented DL could give us trouble, but they are weaker by far than we are on offense plus we're at home and shouldn't have communication issues on offense.

Then it's to Tennessee. Titans are a decent team, but I still don't see the talent level there to beat us. If we did lose, it wouldn't surprised me but I had this chalked up as a win.

Then we are at the Colts. Win. One of the worst defenses in the league.

Then our first real test is LA. The Rams will have Donald back and they are going to bring it to our OL. I hope they've developed enough by then.

If we're 4-1 or even 3-2 by that time, but the OL comes together then we'll be fine. I see this team ripping off a 6 or 8 win streak at some point this year.

Much thanks to Moderators and Fellow Members who revived and breathed renewed life into this thread subject. We all treasure keeping communication channels open and information flowing. Your words speak to the desire for growth as a more tolerant and richer community.

P.S. Word of the week alert: ............I thought the use of the word "Rival" by a member of the press was seized upon as an opportunity to inform. It was a word Pete Carroll objected to in this week's (Wednesday) press conference. It was largely unreported outside of the original sound bite. It provides further insightful into the heart of Pete Carroll and what the Seahawk program is about. Access to that conference is available under the appropriate subject title in the main forum and at seahawks.com. Enjoy and stay informed.